Kuwait, the not so touristy Middle East...

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First blog of 2024...and back on the road for a solid trip! This is not my first flight of the year, I went to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bangkok late January, but I'll spare you blogs of places I lived in total for 15 years!



This is my first visit to Kuwait. Why you are going to ask me, the answer is simple, why not! The online visa process is easy and just short of 10usd. Once in Kuwait, you go through a special visa queue...no question asked, just a lot of smiles and welcome!



I guess this place doesn't welcome that many tourists! I had a closer look at what's available. I have to admit, I passed on the War memorial as well as the oil and gas exhibition. I could have dived here, but after a thorough investigation, I deemed the conditions truly not worth of the effort! But I do have my golf bag and ended playing the Sahara Kuwait golf club!



I'm staying downtown at the Courtyard by Marriott. This is one of the nicest Courtyard and should be soon rebranded as a Marriott. They may be 20kms from the airport, but they provide free transportation from the airport. So once I got my bags, they whisked me straight to a nice car for the 30 minutes ride.



I arrived on a Thursday morning. Friday and Saturday are the weekend here, so in order to avoid the crowd and price hike, the plan was to play golf the same day. I'm lucky that I've been on the top deck of the A380 from Emirates all the way from Bali to Dubai. The bar is the best place to enjoy any long haul flight...and I got the just released Emirates new business class PJs! The connecting flight from Dubai to Kuwait was just a simple 90 minutes affair, and my last glass of bubbles for a while!



The plan was to reach the golf course by public transportation being a good 20kms away from my hotel. Well, here, there are only busses...and the drivers neither do speak English or can read a map. I never made it to the golf course, but managed to get way closer and hopped on a taxi for the last 5 kms.



The 18 holes course is actually pretty nice. These is the only place you can play decent golf at hundreds of kilometers around. The green fee is only 80usd including your buggy and all staffs are nice Nepalese guys. I'm lucky to be pair with a local American expats...good golfer and course knowledge plus few tips on the in and outs of Kuwait made it up for the challenge to get here! Eaton was super nice to drop me back to a proper bus stop with a straight ride to downtown! You do not want to attempt to drop anybody around CBD on a Thursday night, traffic was simply mad!



That was an early night...with the next day more discoveries! Kuwait in early March is windy, but what you may not know, is that it's also pretty fresh. It was around 23 degrees Celsius during the day, dropping to 10 degrees at night! That is indeed fresh and my little jacket was welcome!



Next morning, I'm going around exploring by foot! Kuwait do not like pedestrians! There is simply no traffic lights for pedestrians...and cars will not stop even if you are on a pedestrian crossing. I guess oil equal cars...equal if you don't have one, you are a poor nobody! Whatever, I'm walking...to the beach, next to the Kuwait Towers...next the Corniche and all the way to the Souk Al Mubarakiya and back to the hotel. Nice walk, enjoy the pictures!

Last note, seems the only place people are walking around here are the malls, they are all over the place!

Imagine, the Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq happened in 1990. Feels like yesterday for me. The country was occupied during seven lengthy months! no more traces around here...just the fact that today Kuwait is doing pretty well, and Iraq is just a mess, as well as one of the few countries I have no plan to visit anytime soon.



Enjoy the pictures...next blog coming soon!

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